This model was my entry for the Golden Gobbos painting competition over at the BLOOD forums. Each entry had to include a back story and game rules for the character submitted. Here’s mine, with extra cheese!

Helmut and canine compadres

Deep in the forests of the northern parts of The Riding, a terrible warrior is rumoured to harry the roads. He is said to have scores of wolves at his command, aiding him in his quest for reckless destruction and death. His name is Helmut Wulverskin, and he is in fact a rather wealthy albeit confused man.

As the only heir of merchant Knut Wulverskin (of the Averridge Wulverskins), Helmut was destined for greatness. Alas, destiny did not count on Helmut’s uncle Kurt Wulverskin and his ambition for riches. A dark and stormy night, hired thugs burst into the sleeping quarters of Knut Wulverskin and assassinated the merchant and his wife. Helmut was rescued though, as the infant boy was carried off to safety by his mother’s wolf familiar.

Helmut was raised by a wolfpack deep in the dark forests surrounding Stillburg. For the next 10 years he had no human contact. That changed when a wizened old crone, who would talk to the beasts in their own tongue, visited the pack. She took the boy under her wings and regularily visited, to teach him in the ways of man.

From her, he learned of his true heritage and swore to seek vengeance on the great injustice wrought on him and his family. As a young man, after a decade of training, he set out on a quest for revenge. His first stop was Averridge and the estate of good old uncle Kurt. Apart from gruesome vengeance being exacted, Helmut learned the name and location of the actual perpetrator of the murders. He also recovered his father’s plate armour and old warhammer. The suit of armour includes a magic wolf-pelt, giving command over animals, further enhancing Helmut’s already unnaturally strong bond with his lupine brethren.

The murderer of Helmut’s parents had risen to power, as a favoured champion of the Chaos god Tzeentch. After the fierce battle that ultimately lead to Helmut avenging his parents, Helmut was so badly injured that he very nearly died. He never recovered, and probably suffered one too many blows to his head, as he is still stamping out evil and servants of Chaos where ever he can find them. It’s just a pity that he so often finds them amongst small children on school excursions, in merchant caravans or pilgrimages to and from the Shrine of Gadd.

His estate stands unattended in Averridge, and he was most recently spotted heading for Badwater north of Stillburg talking to himself about a gang of chaos worshippers who had attacked a peaceful envoy from Nippon.

Stats for Warhammer Fantasy Battles, 3rd edition

Helmut Wulverskin – Level 10 Human Hero (80 pts)Helmut is armed with a double-handed weapon and is wearing heavy armour. He is Neutral and hate chaotic and evil

M WS BS S T W I A Ld Int Cl WP
4 5 4 4 4 2 4 3 8+1 7 7 7

While an accomplished fighter Helmut isn’t a very dependable ally. Roll a D6 each turn. On a 1, he is overcome by delusions and control of Helmut and his unit passes to the GM for the rest of the game. Helmut must charge and attack the nearest non-animal unit with gusto, as he has seen the taint of chaos on their poor souls.

Helmut can only be included in warbands and armies containing no Evil or Chaotic units.

When deploying Helmut, he is deployed together with 1D6+2 of his pack mates (counts as regular Giant Wolves, but with Helmut as animal handler and no riders).Stats for Song of Blades & Heroes

Helmut Wulverskin – Human Knight. 39 pts. Q4+, C4. Beastmaster, Animal Handler, Insane.
Special rules: When including Helmut Wulverskin in a warband, a Wolf (Q4, C3, Animal) may be included for free. For victory points calculations, this wolf is worth 19 points but does not count against the grand total value of the warband.

Insane (-5 pts):
After rolling activation dice for an Insane model, also roll 1D6. On a roll of 1, control of the model is temporarily given to the controlling player’s opponent who decide how to use any successful activations . The Insane model is overcome by delusions, and turn on his allies. Control of the model is then relinquished by the opponent and returns to the original controller.

The last few months have been really slow on the painting front. In an effort to remedy that I decided to go for something I could just motor through. These timber wolves from Blue Moon is a perfect example of that.

Arf arf arf…

I bought the models second hand from Tomsche over on LAF. I’ve had them for a few years and never cared much for the models. With some paint on they’re not too bad though and considering how useful wolves and other animal/critter models are when building warbands for skirmishing, I’m surprised I haven’t gotten to them earlier. I have four more that I haven’t finished yet, but I wanted to get something painted up on the blog this month.

Woof!

Rather content with how the paint job turned out, as I really did not spend much time and effort on it. I used a method described by Harry in his mammoth thread on Warseer. The whole model is painted in bleached bone, then most of it is washed with a very, very thin bestial brown. I then paint the upper body gray, increasingly darker until almost black. I drybrush the whole thing with bleached bone (heavily on the lower parts, and then less and less the darker the fur gets). The lighter parts get further highlights with skull white mixed in. The bases are custom cut pill shaped plywood bases from Fenris. I think I spent more time on them than the actual wolves.

Here’s the stat line I’m thinking about using for SOBH: Wolf, Q4+, C2. Animal, Long Move (26 pts)

Sorry about the dodgy photos by the way. I’m trying out a new-ish camera. Got my father in law’s old Nikon D70 as he’s bought something new. I guess I’ll be able to take better pics once I get to grips with it and also get a proper tripod. My old one can’t support this new one.

The total tally for 2012 is now a whopping 70 painted – 254 acquired = -184! I received three figs this week, but forgot to take a photo of them. They’re in the stripping jar now. The only three models I haven’t stripped, by the way! My collection consists now only of bare, primed and based or painted models! Mostly bare metal though. Mostly…

Coming up next, my entry from the last Golden Gobbos. Yeah, I haven’t gotten round to taking a proper pic of him either. I had to finish up these wolves first, as they sort of tie together. I also have a little surprise up my sleeve. Just need pics taken!

It’s been a bit quiet here on the blog front. Not much have happened to write about, I’m slowly chipping away at the Doom Forgers. Have six in various states of WIP and three guys that are merely primed. I’ll have them done and posted up here in a few weeks time.

The in-flow have been fairly slow too, luckily. Last week I got the dragon ogre below, and this week I got a few more tidbits, including the Warhammer Armies book (finally) and a snotling pump wagon (one more off the top wish list).

From left to right: pumpwagon in bloody shambles, but salvageable. Dragon ogre in top shape. ADD1 mule (getting closer to a complete set there). Two orc warriors, one orc big’un (only lack about 10 warriors now and a single big’un to have those categories complete as catalogued in the ’88 catalogue) and an Olley black orc (don’t really like these guys, but he’s a chaotic looking chap and will fit in nicely in my chaos Olley warband). Then we have a Talisman conjurer (daft model, looks like Abe Lincoln pulling a rabbit out of a hat), a chaos warrior/champion and finally a lead belcher with a mish-mash of crew.

I also got a handfull of snotlings with the pumpwagon, but most (12) of them were actually the small Blood Bowl snots and will probably be traded away for “proper” snotlings. Thus I’m not counting them against my total, and the wagon including any snotlings on it is counted as one model for tally purposes. Which brings me to the total tally for 2012, now 62 painted – 251 acquired = -189. I’ve painted two models fully, but won’t adjust my numbers until they’re posted here. Just need to take a few photos.

Got another batch of finely detailed plastic miniatures from the 90s. This time Steve (from Tea’s Getting Cold) took pity on me (I assume because of the suffering endured when painting 16 identical dwarfs) and shipped me a box of free swag in varying states of decay.

"Is that a beastman in your bitz box or are you just happy to see me?"

This brings my total for 2012 to 62 painted – 238 acquired = -176. I’ve vowed to paint the 18 intact models before the end of 2012, so expect to see more painted dull plastic dross on here. Before painting them, I’ll have another go at the Doom Forgers team for Dungeon Bowl. Ten more models to go there! I also have a very serious urge to paint up my “Chaos All-Stars” human team. I’ll postpone that to “after the plastics” though.

This guy is another model I’ve bought painted off LAF members. This time, it’s a classic Realms of Chaos beastman and he’s sporting an equally classic paintjob courtesy of Elysium64 (who also painted my Spartan chaps I posted earlier). I’ve got a few more beasty things painted by Simon, but they haven’t been rebased yet. The model was sculpted by Jes Goodwin and can be seen among other places in the 1989 catalogue.

Painted by Elysium64

Don’t really have a warband to put him in just yet, but hopefully I’ll be able to get some more chaos painted up as there’s a huge chaotic hole in my collection of painted models.